Any Encore Offers?

[SunandFun83]

We have a tour scheduled on Tuesday morning at Westin Lagunamar. I own Marriott and Hyatt weeks (all resale purchases) so, I am certainly not going to buy a week on this tour. I think the mandatory points resorts resale ( like Kierland) are a much more flexible purchase.

Does Westin have an aggressive encore promotion program like Marriott? Marriott will offer 4-6 nights for a return visit at a very deep discount.

We did purchase an encore at Marriott Oceana Palms and saw a thread about Newport Coast ( both full two bedrooms). We are loving the Westin Lagunamar and want to think ahead to next year.

Can we expect an Encore offer?

 

[SMHarman]

You can expext one but unless you are buying retail they do not have great value.

 

[VacationForever]

Starwood calls in Explorer package but it is never a good deal. Usually they will put you into a studio.

 

[Helios]

I think it only makes sense to get one if you are thinking about coming back to purchase or, better yet, to requal a resale (by purchasing something at the right margin). Either way, the unit you get will most likely be a left over.

 

[cubigbird]

We have a tour scheduled on Tuesday morning at Westin Lagunamar. I own Marriott and Hyatt weeks (all resale purchases) so, I am certainly not going to buy a week on this tour. I think the mandatory points resorts resale ( like Kierland) are a much more flexible purchase.

Does Westin have an aggressive encore promotion program like Marriott? Marriott will offer 4-6 nights for a return visit at a very deep discount.

We did purchase an encore at Marriott Oceana Palms and saw a thread about Newport Coast ( both full two bedrooms). We are loving the Westin Lagunamar and want to think ahead to next year.

Can we expect an Encore offer?

One answer not given above: no they are not aggressive, but they do ask - that is their process. After you have said no initially, they will shuffle you off (usually) to another room. It will be disguised as a "survey to make sure you were treated right." The person then asks you for the encore purchase. After you say no again, then you are out. You can say no comfortably and not be hassled.

While not an encore package, another item not mentioned, after the fact while still at the resort, I have also been offered once a return trip to Lagunamar for 5 days for $250 total cost, with a return presentation required, no incentives, just the dirt cheap rate. The one time I was offered, I passed as I was booked up for vacation the rest of the year. Otherwise $250 for 5 days with only a 90 minute (relatively easy) presentation is a steal. Compared to the encore package which is a week with the incentive starpoints attached.

My experience with WLR sales has been very pleasant.

 

[dioxide45]

We have a tour scheduled on Tuesday morning at Westin Lagunamar. I own Marriott and Hyatt weeks (all resale purchases) so, I am certainly not going to buy a week on this tour. I think the mandatory points resorts resale ( like Kierland) are a much more flexible purchase.

If you buy a week at Lagunamar while on a tour it comes with the flexibility of SVN. It is just as flexible, it is the price that isn't.

 

[SunandFun83]

Now That is What I am Talking About

One answer not given above: no they are not aggressive, but they do ask - that is their process. After you have said no initially, they will shuffle you off (usually) to another room. It will be disguised as a "survey to make sure you were treated right." The person then asks you for the encore purchase. After you say no again, then you are out. You can say no comfortably and not be hassled.

While not an encore package, another item not mentioned, after the fact while still at the resort, I have also been offered once a return trip to Lagunamar for 5 days for $250 total cost, with a return presentation required, no incentives, just the dirt cheap rate. The one time I was offered, I passed as I was booked up for vacation the rest of the year. Otherwise $250 for 5 days with only a 90 minute (relatively easy) presentation is a steal. Compared to the encore package which is a week with the incentive starpoints attached.

My experience with WLR sales has been very pleasant.

Thanks, This is exactly what I wanted: Explanation of the process and the best offer I can hope for. Five days at $250 would be a great value. Unfortunately, the studio will probably not work. My mother-in-law has learned that most timeshare villas come with a second bedroom for her. I will report back Monday after my tour. Maybe they will come up with a 2br at some price.

 

[SunandFun83]

I got two firm encore offers and a maybe

The return visit offers were called "Explorer" I found them confusing because they had a combination of nights lodging at the Lagunamar vacation club and SPG Starpoints for the hotels.

Offer #1 4 nights Studio and 50,000 SPG points price $1,944

Offer #2 6 nights large One Bedroom and 70,000 SPG points price $2,744

The vacation club nights are supposedly good at any season
The purchase can be charged on the Starwood AMEX with 5 times points

Both offers also include one year of SPG Gold

The maybe offer (to be presented by Concierge is 4 nights studio for $399, no SPG points)


How do you value these two packages? Assume two weekend nights and platinum season for the six night stay. What value do you place on Starpoints when you redeem for hotel stays?

My gut feeling is that the 4 night studio is not attractive.

 

[VacationForever]

The return visit offers were called "Explorer" I found them confusing because they had a combination of nights lodging at the Lagunamar vacation club and SPG Starpoints for the hotels.

Offer #1 4 nights Studio and 50,000 SPG points price $1,944

Offer #2 6 nights large One Bedroom and 70,000 SPG points price $2,744

The vacation club nights are supposedly good at any season
The purchase can be charged on the Starwood AMEX with 5 times points

Both offers also include one year of SPG Gold

The maybe offer (to be presented by Concierge is 4 nights studio for $399, no SPG points)


How do you value these two packages? Assume two weekend nights and platinum season for the six night stay. What value do you place on Starpoints when you redeem for hotel stays?

My gut feeling is that the 4 night studio is not attractive.

If you don't intend to buy from them, it is much cheaper to trade through II.

 

[dsmrp]

The return visit offers were called "Explorer" I found them confusing because they had a combination of nights lodging at the Lagunamar vacation club and SPG Starpoints for the hotels.

Offer #1 4 nights Studio and 50,000 SPG points price $1,944

Offer #2 6 nights large One Bedroom and 70,000 SPG points price $2,744

The vacation club nights are supposedly good at any season
The purchase can be charged on the Starwood AMEX with 5 times points

Both offers also include one year of SPG Gold

The maybe offer (to be presented by Concierge is 4 nights studio for $399, no SPG points)


How do you value these two packages? Assume two weekend nights and platinum season for the six night stay. What value do you place on Starpoints when you redeem for hotel stays?

My gut feeling is that the 4 night studio is not attractive.

I agree, explorer pkg are not unusually great values, plus you have to go to another sales presentation.

I value spg points at 2 cents/pt. Some websites say they can be worth 4 cents, but I like to be more conservative in my comparisons.
So at 2c rate, offer#1 will cost roughly $235/nite for the studio.
For offer 2, about $225/nite for the 1 bdrm...a little better for more space and people.

I also use 10K spg per hotel nite stay in the states. don't know what Lagunamar charges, but high end hotels in Italy are 20-30K per nite.

I hope your MIL doesn'the expect to come on every timeshare stay with you LOL. Find an occasional reason for spouse and you to go on your own, such as "oh sorry, could only get a studio "

 

[Scott & Laura]

I went to Lagunamar and found them very informative.As with all updates the deal is they will update you but, be respectful they also want oppurtunity to sell you. That is how they make their living. Anyone who goes to an update and refuses their end of bargain is being unfair--after all they compensate you to listen so understand that is how they earn living. That is the deal they help you--compensate you--and you agree to listen to them.

I found Lagunamar extremely helpful, very respectful and they understood Starwood sale created turmoil and uncertainty and they made no attempt to sell me. They offered explorer package for 30 seconds and discarded/

I found the handoff guy very informative and he was very respectful and did not sell

I enjoyed Lagunamar. I traded Maui week for it and was happy as it is a short flight

Scott

 

[okwiater]

I agree with Scott. As long as the salespeople are honest and respectful I am happy to listen to the sales pitch and don't find them distasteful. Many people assume that the salespeople are always lying but I haven't found that to be true. They are often overly optimistic about certain aspects of ownership but that's not the same as lying. I usually just explain what I currently own and what, if anything, it would take for me to make a purchase.

 

[Henry M.]

My owner update experiences in Maui and St. John have always been courteous and pleasant. Like the last couple of posts mention, there are some offers to buy new product, but never pushy or a problem. Sometimes I learn something, sometimes I don't. I don't go very often, only if there are major new developments within Starwood.

I do get a lot of value from Starpoints, mostly in Europe. However, I use the 2¢/point threshold to evaluate any offers. That is, I assign about 2¢/point value to any perk that involves getting Starpoints. I wouldn't necessarily pay that much out of pocket but do think I can get at least that much value from them.

 

[Markus]

Update experience

My experience has also been positive. I have attended updates at Lagunamar, Kierland and Maui. The sales persons were always respectful and pleasant. As others have said sometimes I learn something and sometimes not.

Markus

 

[SunandFun83]

Thanks for the responses

I found Lagunamar extremely helpful, very respectful and they understood Starwood sale created turmoil and uncertainty and they made no attempt to sell me. They offered explorer package for 30 seconds and discarded/

I found the handoff guy very informative and he was very respectful and did not sell

I enjoyed Lagunamar. I traded Maui week for it and was happy as it is a short flight

Scott

I find Lagunamar to be a great resort and my new favorite in Cancun. I found the sales presentation to be the worst that I have attended ( out of at least 10) The first person was awful and wasted a lot of time. I told her I would not buy in Mexico because even though I feel secure today, it could change to be like Acapulco. She then told me that Acapulco is getting better, but, wait 2-3 years to go back.

She ran over 90 minutes without
1. Showing me a villa ( I am staying Beachfront this week)
2. Giving me any pricing information ( prices are posted by the door and I got up to read the list)

I found the hand-off guy to be a waste of time and pretty high pressure. I told him that Vistana (to show I knew the difference between Hotel side and Vacation Club) was sold to interval Leisure Group. I own Hyatt weeks and said I think ILG might combine Hyatt and Vistana in some way. He kept saying that was not possible because some VP at headquarters said everything will be the same. In my company, the biggest lies at HQ come just before they reduce the work force by 5,000 employees. Just the opposite of what Scott said, the closer insisted the ILG purchase would not change a thing and then kept banging away at the close for 15 minutes.

I blame myself for excess politeness. I should have cut off the first tour guide at 60 minutes. I do not own Starwood and actually hoped to learn something about the system.

My warning to anyone taking the tour is
1. Don't , it is more like 2 or 2 1/2 hours and not worth it
2. Cut off the first guide at 60 minutes because you still have to go to the closer and the "Survey" before you get your voucher
3. Learn as much as possible about the Explorer. I found it very confusing to combine nights and SPG points in a package.

Thanks for all your input. My exchange request is in for weeks 49/50/51 and I have a back-up plan in place to rent from an owner.

 

[blondietink]

As an owner at Lagunamar, I have found them to always be polite and respectful at the Owners Updates. The staff around the resort is top notch and the condition of the resort is wonderful. I believe that people enjoy it so much because it is not all inclusive.

In Maui they were also laid back at the update. Florida updates have all been high pressure.

 

[Helios]

It would be interesting to compare the amount of pressure people get based on how many units/SOs they own. Adding the location of the presentation would make it more complex but interesting.

Several years ago I had a medium pressure presentation at WLM, I owned 162,000 SOs, and was staying on an II exchange (exchanged studio into 2BDLO, too bad those lucky exchange days seem to be long gone). Since then, I have gone to a couple of presentations at various locations and they have been very low pressure, even short. They must think I will not buy more...

 

[n777lt]

Going back to the original topic - encore possibilities - we took an encore package which gave us a very cheap 5-day stay in a 2 bedroom at Mission Hills, which we immediately scheduled for the Film Festival week! A great deal for us at the time, though I have forgotten the terms. They were trying to sell Desert Willow.

 

[sgtdesi]

We've bought a couple at Riverfront and use them for ski time. Typically it's the only way we can get time there during ski season, so it works for us. Plus you get the points.

 

[paluamalia]

Explorer Package

We have a tour scheduled on Tuesday morning at Westin Lagunamar. I own Marriott and Hyatt weeks (all resale purchases) so, I am certainly not going to buy a week on this tour. I think the mandatory points resorts resale ( like Kierland) are a much more flexible purchase.

Does Westin have an aggressive encore promotion program like Marriott? Marriott will offer 4-6 nights for a return visit at a very deep discount.

We did purchase an encore at Marriott Oceana Palms and saw a thread about Newport Coast ( both full two bedrooms). We are loving the Westin Lagunamar and want to think ahead to next year.

Can we expect an Encore offer?

We've found that you can negotiate their Explorer offer, ask for a longer stay, ask for a different resort, ask for a lower price, ask for more SPG points. Sometimes it will fit what you want. We've had good experiences with these even if you don't buy retail. There are cheaper ways to go, and if you they don't like your counter offers, it's an easy out!

 

[SandyPGravel]

It would be interesting to compare the amount of pressure people get based on how many units/SOs they own. Adding the location of the presentation would make it more complex but interesting.

Several years ago I had a medium pressure presentation at WLM, I owned 162,000 SOs, and was staying on an II exchange (exchanged studio into 2BDLO, too bad those lucky exchange days seem to be long gone). Since then, I have gone to a couple of presentations at various locations and they have been very low pressure, even short. They must think I will not buy more...

I'm not sure what happened, but we were not even acknowledged as a Starwood owner at HRA the second week of November. Wasn't asked if we wanted to attend an update, never received any calls from the concierge. Now I will admit we have rescinded twice since 2013, and have now bought re-sale, so maybe that was why. We have 257,700 SO now, but are not elite in any sense of the word. I will be interested to see what happens when we go to WSJ as an owner in February. We're only staying 7 days so no time for a sales presentation.

 

[okwiater]

I'm not sure what happened, but we were not even acknowledged as a Starwood owner at HRA the second week of November. Wasn't asked if we wanted to attend an update, never received any calls from the concierge. Now I will admit we have rescinded twice since 2013, and have now bought re-sale, so maybe that was why. We have 257,700 SO now, but are not elite in any sense of the word. I will be interested to see what happens when we go to WSJ as an owner in February. We're only staying 7 days so no time for a sales presentation.

We've only been offered the owners update 1 out of 4 times staying at HRA. The kicker is that when we showed up for the update they didn't have enough sales associates so they gave us our reward and sent us on our way!

When we were there a couple of weeks ago, we ran into a staff member we recognized from previous trips and asked whether they still do updates. She said they did and signed us up for one. We weren't interested in buying, though, since we already have plenty of SOs and they don't accept trade-ins.

 

[suzannesimon]

I love how laid-back it is at Harborside re presentations. When we were there Thanksgiving week, they had an owners' cocktail party with salespeople sitting at computers to schedule presentations if you wanted one to "explain the new Starwood-Marriott merger" which I know has no effect on us. The only reward was your name went into a drawing for a gift basket they had at the cocktail party.